Fruit Leather Recipe Template
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Fruit leathers are homemade fruit rolls. They are a tasty, chewy, dried fruit product. Fruit leathers are made by pouring puréed fruit onto a flat surface for drying. When dried, the fruit is pulled from the surface and rolled. It gets the name “leather” from the fact that when the puréed fruit is dried, it is shiny and has the texture of leather.
The advantages of making fruit leathers are to use less sugar,mix fruit flavors to your liking, and to control the quality of fruits being used.
Theyare a great tasting, healthy snack that can be easily made with a food dehydrator. Homemade leathers are wholesome, 100% fruit snacks that are incredibly easy and fun to make.
Store bought roll-ups are overprocessed, overpriced, and are imitation fruit products that include extra sugars, corn syrups, and trans fats as ingredients.
Hereis a listing of the primary ingredients from a well-known brand of a fruit roll up product:Fruit from Concentrate,Corn Syrup,Dried Corn Syrup,Sugar, andPartially Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil. There isn’t a need for such products to go into fruit leathers!
Tips for making the best homemade fruit leather:
Select:
- Select RIPE orslightly overripe fruitthat has reached a peak in color, texture, and flavor.
Prepare:
- Prepare the fruit; wash, dry, remove stems, pits, seeds and so forth.
- Remove the skins if desired and any bruised areas.
Purée:
- Purée the fruit in your blender or food processor until smooth.
- Taste and sweeten if needed. Keep in mind that flavors will concentrateas they dehydrate.
- When adding a sweetener do so 1 tbsp at a time, and reblend, tasting until it is at the desired taste.
- It is best to use a liquid type sweetener such as raw honey. Don’t use granulated sugar because it tends to change the texture of the finished fruit leather.
Problem Solving:
- Too thick: Thepurée for the fruit leather is too thick (won’t pour easily). Add fruit juice or water, a little at a time until you achieve the right consistency. Also, you can add other fruits that are higher in water content.
- Too thin:The purée for the fruit leather is too thin (too runny). Mix with fruits that have a lower water content such as banana (make a thicker purée), or add 1 Tbsp at a time of ground chia seeds.Juicy fresh fruits, such as strawberries, can be too runny to create a thick, chewy leather like the commercial types. By adding a banana when puréeing, the mixture will become thick, and the fruit leather willbe as well. Be sure to pour 3/4 to 1 cup of purée on each tray and allow it to spread out. Remember, the poured purée should be 1/4” thick at the edges.
- Discolored:The fruit leather is discolored.Many fruits will discolor as they dry. It doesn’t affect the taste, only the appearance. To make fruit leather that doesn’t discolor, you can add a little lemon juice to the purée. Add about 2 tsp per 2 cups of purée.
Spices to Try:
- Allspice, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, ginger, mace, mint, nutmeg, or pumpkin pie spice. Use sparingly, start with 1/8 teaspoon for every two cups of purée.
Flavorings to Try:
- Almond extract, lemon juice, lemon peel, lime juice, lime peel, orange extract, orange juice, orange peel, or vanilla extract. Use sparingly, try 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon for every two cups of purée.
Extender:
- Applesauce can be dried alone or added to any fresh fruit purée as an extender. It decreases tartness and makes the leather smoother and more pliable.
Delicious Additions to Try:
- Shredded coconut, chopped dates, other dried chopped fruits, granola, chopped nuts, chopped raisins, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, or sunflower seeds. These can be sprinkled on top for added texture.
Spreading the fruit:
- Pour the fruit purée in the center of a nonsticksheet that comes with thedehydrator. Let gravity spread it out, giving it a little shimmy at the end to settle it down.
- Do not use wax paper or aluminum foil; it will stick. If you don’t have the nonstick sheets, use parchment paper.
- Pour the mixture to create an even depth of 1/4 inch.
- When spreading the purée on the liner, allow about an inch of space between the mixture and the outside edge.
- The fruit leather mixture will spread out as it dries, so it needs a little room to allow for this expansion.
Dehydrate:
- Dehydrate the fruit leather at 145 degrees for 1 hour, then reduce to 115 degrees (F) for about 16 (+/-) hours. The finished consistency should be pliable and easy to roll.
- Check for dark spots on top of the fruit leather. If dark spots can be seen it is a sign that the fruit leather is not completely dry.
- Press down on the fruit leather with a finger. If no indentation is visible or if it is no longer tacky to the touch, the fruit leather is dry and can be removed from the dehydrator.
- Peel the leather from the dehydrator trays or parchment paper.
- If the fruit leather peels away easily and holds its shape after peeling, it is dry.
- If it is still sticking or loses its shape after peeling, it needs further drying.
- Under-dried fruit leather will not keep; it will mold. Over-dried fruit leather will become hard and crack, although it will still be edible and will keep for a long time
Storage:
- Allow the leather to cool before wrapping up to avoid moisture from forming, thus giving it a breeding ground for molds.
- Roll them up and wrap tightly with plastic wrap.
- Place in an air-tight container, and store in a dry, dark place. (Light will cause the fruit leather to discolor.)
- The fruit leather will keep at room temperature for approximately one month, or in a freezer for up to one year.
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Paula Urquhart says: July 31, 2012 at 7:35 am
WOW! I have made fruit leathers (raw) & love them… but I’ve never seen any presented & packaged so beautiful !! YOU really are an artist of food, presentation & amazing creations… You’ve inspired me to making more of these yummy treats! Love your blog, keep up the awesome work, you excel !! One of the best sites out there, best of success to you ALWAYS !! xx a fan from Kincardine, Ontario, Canada
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- amie-sue says:
July 31, 2012 at 8:06 am
Thank you Paula…. presentation is right up there with taste in my book. :) I appreciate your kind and encouraging words. Many blessings, amie sue
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- rhonda says:
July 5, 2013 at 6:08 am
Hi ami-sue did you create these labels using Avery?
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- amie-sue says:
July 5, 2013 at 6:08 pm
Hi Rhonda, for these I just used a normal sheet of paper because they were so large. amie sue
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- Akentos says:
August 1, 2012 at 2:07 am
O.O Fantastico!
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- amie-sue says:
August 1, 2012 at 11:20 pm
I second that Akentos hehe
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- Tiffany says:
August 1, 2012 at 6:20 am
I LOVE it! The packaging is so cute. Amy, thanks for all the inspiration you provide. You put a unique spin on everything you do. Your attention to detail raises the bar for excellence!
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- amie-sue says:
August 1, 2012 at 11:21 pm
Thank you Tiffany. I believe that we ought to surround ourselves with beauty and art and that my friend can come in so many mediums… I appreciate your kinds words, they “inspire” me. :) Have a wonderful day when this message finds you. amie sue
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- Jana says:
August 1, 2012 at 7:29 am
My dear Amie-Sue
I see you are using your cherries! :)
I love the packaging, would be totally buy some of them in a store.
The last time I made fruit leather I filled them with cashew cream, the neighbours loved it.See you soon ;) can’t wait!
Love JanaReply
- amie-sue says:
August 1, 2012 at 11:25 pm
Good evening Jana,
So good to hear from you! Yes indeed, I am using my cherries lol. Last night alone I packaged up 26 cups worth of DRIED cherries in food savor bags to keep them fresh. Shew! That’s a lot considering they really shrink up during dehydration. I have also made 27 full tray sheets of leathers and my freezer is well stocked. lol I have more recipes to share that include them but I don’t want to over saturate you all with recipes. Trust me, it’s hard for me to pull the reigns back. I look forward to meeting you this Fall! Have a wonderful day, amie sueReply
- Lauren says:
November 26, 2012 at 1:34 pm
I’m looking for a recipe that makes a thicker, fruit snack-like, bar. I had a FruitChia bar the other day that was delicious and I’d like to find a recipe to recreate it. This was a thicker and chewier fruit bar than the regular fruit leather. It didn’t seem to have any other added ingredients other than fruit & chia seeds. I have yet to experiement. Any tips?
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- amie-sue says:
November 26, 2012 at 1:47 pm
Hi Lauren,
Have you looked through all my fruit leather recipes? https://nouveauraw.com/raw-recipies/fruit-leathers/
I have some recipes on there called Fruit Chews… https://nouveauraw.com/raw-recipies/specialty-sweet-treats/make-blueberry-lavender-chia-chews/ Here is one for starters. Was the bar you had, sold in stores? Do you have a brand name?Reply
- Morgan says:
May 31, 2013 at 3:44 am
I just got my brand new Excalibur, and a load of feijoas from my organic food co-op and thought to make myself from fruit leather. Using a high powered blender I blended a mix of feijoas/bananas/raspberries and a little apple/rhubarb juice until I had a thick but pourable puree. I put on a teflex sheet and it would only have been about 1/8″ thick, and when I checked on it two hours into the dry time it had cracked all over. The leather is still very wet, too wet to peel off the teflex although a skin is starting to form on top, but it’s all cracked. Any thoughts as to where I went wrong?
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- amie-sue says:
May 31, 2013 at 5:02 pm
Hi Morgan, this has happened to me once. My guess it that it might not have been pureed enough. That is what I guessed to have happened when it happened to me. And sometimes if the fruit is low in pectin, it can crack more. Also, make sure that you don’t have the temp to high. These are just suggestions, hard to know for sure from this point. Keep drying it till completely dry…. crumble it and sprinkle over cereal and try again. :) amie sue
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- Malgorzata says:
June 23, 2013 at 6:55 am
Why the storage time is one month only? I make dehydrated fruits and they last a year in a glass jar kept ine the kitchen cupboard. The fruit leather seems to have no more water than the fruits.
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- amie-sue says:
June 24, 2013 at 7:35 pm
It is my educated guess Malgozata…. I am not a manufacture and I can’t say for sure what the shelf-life is since I don’t send foods off for testing. And since we don’t keep raw foods around that long, I am going based off experience. It will last longer in the fridge or freezer… It will greatly depend on each persons drying technique. Have a wonderful evening, amie sue
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- Malgorzata says:
June 26, 2013 at 1:08 am
Thank you Amie-Sue for your response. I thought, that it had gone bad after one month. We have got a very short strawberries’ and cherries’ season, so I would like to keep them for longer time :-)
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- amie-sue says:
June 26, 2013 at 10:48 am
I so understand Malgorzata, I made over 78 different flavored fruit leathers last summer just to preserve all the seasonal fresh fruit that was given to me. :) Enjoy and have a blessed day, amie sue
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- Malgorzata says:
December 2, 2013 at 2:23 am
Amie-Sue it is almost half a year since I’ve made my first fruit leather. I still keep some of the first batch and they are in a good condition. I store them in a glass jar, which stands in the kitchen drawer.
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- amie-sue says:
December 2, 2013 at 6:30 pm
That is great malgorzata. I agree, in the right storing conditions / climate, fruit leathers can keep for a long time. :) Thank you for sharing! amie sue
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- diane lupinacci says:
August 5, 2013 at 9:56 am
Do you have a recipe for making carrot fruit roll up with carrot pulp?
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- amie-sue says:
August 5, 2013 at 7:25 pm
No I don’t Diane. I tried one at one point but it turned out brittle and I never tried again. Sorry, amie sue
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- Jennifer says:
October 13, 2013 at 11:25 am
Your site is really awesome, and very pretty. Thank you, I will be back to visit over and over!
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- amie-sue says:
October 14, 2013 at 11:22 am
Thank you Jennifer… I hope you find great inspiration throughout! amie sue
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- Kymn says:
April 24, 2014 at 5:35 am
Hi
thanks for this recipe. I have a problem. I followed the steps one by one and my leather pulled apart when drying. I tried is 3 times again and it did the same with all 3 batches. Its as if it cracks. Do you know what I am doing wrong?
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- amie-sue says:
April 24, 2014 at 11:28 pm
Hello Kymn, what ingredients are you using? Are you following one of mine? Please let me know so I can better help you. amie sue
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- Kymn says:
April 27, 2014 at 2:42 am
Hi Amie-sue
I followed your instructions step by step but used guavas with a sugar water. I did not make it to runny but a good pouring consistency.
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- amie-sue says:
April 28, 2014 at 5:59 pm
I am not familiar with guavas Kymn, nor do I use sugar water… so that might be the issue. Hard for me to comment since I am not familiar with using the two ingredients. There might be too much “water” in the batter. amie sue
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- kymn says:
May 7, 2014 at 5:02 am
Hi Ami sue
Thanks for your reply. I will have to do more research.
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- Evelyn says:
September 1, 2014 at 12:56 pm
My leather has cracked and separated…have I got it too dry and spread too thin?
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- amie-sue says:
September 2, 2014 at 10:01 am
Hello Evelyn,
What temp did you dry it at? Was any part of it still wet at this point? It does sound like it might have gotten to dry but hard to know for sure since I can’t see it. Let me know. amie sue
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- Sarah says:
January 2, 2015 at 8:15 pm
Hi,
Great site! Loved how you seemed to have all necessary info. I’m wondering about temp though. Most other sources are saying, including the Excalibur booklet, that a higher temp should be used or used for at least the first few hours in order to prevent bad bacteria from infecting the leather. Would it still be considered ‘raw’ then? Also, is it safe to use such a low temp as 105?
Thanks! I’m very new to dehydrating and eating raw, so I appreciate your help!
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- amie-sue says:
January 2, 2015 at 8:44 pm
Good evening Sarah,
I usually only use the 145 temp for foods that are high in moisture and/or thick in texture. Most people use much higher temps with fruit leathers. I find that 115 degrees (F) suits me well. The fruit leather puree is so thin that I really don’t fear bacteria growth. I have been making it for years and have yet to experience that. Have a wonderful weekend! :) amie sue
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- Serena says:
September 8, 2015 at 10:44 pm
Yeah!!!!
I did them!!!
I red this post sooo many times that i did yesterday!
My yaed is full of grapes and new apples! Soooo…..i made apple and grapes!
My daughter loves rollup, but i never know it, here in italy we don’t have anythig so delicious and easy to do1
So thanks thanks thanks Amie Sue for your precious post :)
Have a wonderfull daySerena
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- amie-sue says:
September 9, 2015 at 7:32 am
That is wonderful Seresa… happy to see you busy in the kitchen making fruit leathers. I bet your daughter does love them too! What a treat. :) Thank you for sharing and have a blessed day, amie sue
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- Christi says:
June 27, 2016 at 3:14 am
Amie Sue, I’m so glad you recycled this recipe & how-to! I’ve made your crackers and cookies in my dehydrator (all fantastic) but haven’t taken on fruit leathers yet. Today’s the day!
…and ditto one of the comments above–>your presentation is gorgeous–>eye candy! Thanks!Reply
- amie-sue says:
June 27, 2016 at 1:41 pm
Thank you Christi… yes, sometimes things get lost in the shuffle and I have been getting a lot of emails, comments, etc asking about fruit leathers so I thought it was high time to refresh things. So happy to hear that you are enjoying the recipes. Thank you so much for sharing. Blessings, amie sue
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amie-sue 
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Malgorzata 
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